Delivering quality marketing and stakeholder communications services

Christmas e-Marketing – Bah, Humbug!

Something odd happened today. I received a Christmas message from a marketing agency and it caught my attention. There was nothing particularly striking about the email; the design was not overly creative– a cut out Christmas tree and simple little blinking star animation – and the message was a generic ‘wishing you and your family …’.

What stood out was the sender. I looked at the name, which was quite distinctive, and thought, ‘I’m sure I’ve been receiving emails from this guy for years, and never really paid any attention’. My email management is poor to say the least and, when I searched back in my email archive, I found a handful of emails that I hadn’t deleted from this marketing agency going back to 2007 – seven years!

I know nothing about the agency, I have no idea how I ended up on its mailing list, and for some reason I have never asked to be removed. Maybe the frequency of emails was so unobtrusive that it was easier to ignore them or, subconsciously, maybe there was some reason for me to do nothing and let the emails keep coming.

Would you class this as a successful marketing approach? There are two schools of thought on this one.

On the one hand, you could consider it a monumental waste of effort. At least seven years’ worth of e-marketing for not a single response – no emails opened or read and no click throughs from me. Sure, it’s a volume approach so the individual cost and effort is minimal. Let’s say my email address was acquired in the first place – a few cents at the most – then the ongoing cost per email sent, which again, probably amounts to just a few cents. Add it all up and, over the years, this marketing agency has probably spent just a few dollars in marketing to me. At some point though, wouldn’t you take a look at your database, and decide that after seven years of zero response, maybe it’s time to quietly delete my email address and move on?

On the other hand, you could argue that with perseverance, the marketing agency has finally achieved some cut-through, albeit in a perverse way. I’m finally taking notice! For a minimal marketing cost and effort, time and weight of numbers has worked. Who knows, after the next email I receive, maybe I’ll pick up the phone and talk to them.

The truth is, I would never use this agency, let alone talk to them. Why not? It’s lazy marketing. There is no attempt to understand what I need or if I am even the right target audience. It’s just a numbers game for the agency – there is no analysis of the success of its approach in marketing to me.

And a Christmas message? I don’t know who you are, because you have never bothered to engage with me in any meaningful way. Sure, send me through ‘useful’ advice on ‘Expanding the Reach of your Email Marketing with Social Networking’ or ‘Targeting Potential Customers for Better Marketing Results’ (I went back and read the agency’s old email subject lines) – but don’t make out we have a personal connection if you’ve never bothered to create one.

I think I am finally going to hit the ‘unsubscribe’ button.

On a brighter note, I’d like to wish all Explore Communications’ past, present and future clients and their families a very merry Christmas and happy New Year!